Book Recomendation

I've been finishing up my readings for my upcoming Servant Partners training in Manila. One book that I would recomend if you are interested in learning a little more about the urban poor and why they are a priorty people group is "Dispossessed~Life in Our World's Urban Slums" by Mark Kramer.

The book is mostly a narritive of stories about individuals, families and communities around the world. The book is divided by geographical location. It covers Manila, Nairobi, Mexico City, Bangkok, and Cairo. The last chapter, called Knowing the Dispossessed is great. I'm including some quotes that I really liked from the book:

The author quotes another author, Wangari Maathai:
"Africa continues to be marginalized politically and economically and even socially. There is lack of genuine support, cooperation and equal partnership from the rich international community... but as if to justify relief and financial aid, people from rich countries are more willing to go to Africa to implement relief services like feeding emaciated infants, discover Africans dying of horrible diseases like AIDS and Ebola, be peacekeepers in war torn countries and send horrifying imagies of tragedies for television. Hardly any of the friends of Africa are willing to tackle the political and economical decisions being made in their own countries and which are partly responsible for the same horrible images brought to their living rooms by television."

"Differences among peoples and cultures are real. Distance and ignorance of one another keep us apart. Even after reading this book, you may be wondering how you'll ever truly identify with the experiences of people living in informal settlements. Consciously or not, we identify and differentiate ourselves and others through a variety of means: a passport, culinary tastes, ethnic heritage, language, religion, style of dress, the amount of melanin in our skin. Our own identity becomes a point of reference that defines who we are and how we relate to the rest of the world. It also helps us define who we are not."